This is Ground Control to Major Kyle

Solid description and dialogue on the first exercise. I enjoy that it is a person walking around the city, looking for stories and finding them. The characters he meet have a strong reality based in the details that the narrator discovers in them. Hot dogs, cigarettes, rubber bands. These concrete images integrate well with the journey, and the description of the hot dog and the oddness of the rubber bands help create a slightly surreal setting.

2 … Great introduction paragraph that gives us location, place, and atmosphere. The repetition in the last sentence shows how the train dominates the setting, and the sentence construction works very well, leading us to the action of the next paragraph. “The potential for things he couldn’t face again” is a snapshot of what is, at the moment we read it, a mysterious and probably troubled past. The action crescendos as Walt runs up the stairs, and peaks with the train, but the old lady also calls him a liar. This makes me wonder what is going on with Walt, what is real to him and whether there is a larger conspiracy or if he is having paranoid delusions.

Nás’k! This writing style allows us to see the fragmented and troubled thoughts of Walt. Based on the last reading, now going inside the character, the choppy sentences work well to show a mind struggling. The descriptions focus on the things that are not well, blood in the mis-shaped stool, the two isolated sentences about the tongue that are their own paragraphs. And then the closing image, so vile, his actions and thoughts point to something that could be fatal. A closing scene that is impossible to forget.

Exercise four shows an intense level of description, which for me hints at an awkwardness or other tension even though the action is minimal. It was good to read how you approached this exercise; how you carried a character through the last three (I am assuming we have the same Walt in the last one). With the intensity of action and internal illness, there is a lot to wonder about him and his mental state. The writing styles work well for each scene, and all the sentences are well crafted. The only one you may want to reconsider is the one that has “her her” just because it creates a bit of an awkward flow. It was good to read your writing Kyle. I enjoyed your sentence structure and how you are showing a scene through skilled dialogue, description, and action. I look forward to reading more, and comparing approaches to exercises and to scene & character development. Now, it is time for a fallen tree hot dog with generic ketchup … maybe not ketchup after the last image in exercise three!

Gunalchéesh!

- Xh'unei